Mount Analogue

Self-cohesion and group-cohesion, a managerial mantra that helped the algorithm Curatron to articulate the group show constituted by the duo Adam Cruces and Louisa Gagliardi, Sebastian Burger and the group BB5000. Opaque, unregulated, and uncontestable, yet we still have to decipher its choices.

Maybes the fetishism of Sebastian Burger, his love for leather skinsuit stitched with metal ring should dress the alpine cruiser portrayed by the duo Cruces & Gagliardi. His love for deep ravines, steep slopes and oak mosses inspired him to buy the limited latex fetish Salomon edition which is only available in the brand flagship store in Saint- Moritz. Should we follow these premises and delve into the secrets of the Davos forum's darkroom. Happiness in Slavery is a beautiful track from Nine Inch Nails but also the interior psalmody of our main protagonist. He is an internationally reknowned economist whose opinions are both chirurgical and totally ignored by the economical world class actors. Doomed to their PowerPoint status, these complex data simulations will never see the loaded light of Shanghai, Lagos or Mexico. Their progenitor's fate is not very different: he has a beautiful class A - but totally benign - existence.

In the confine of his body, he holds the tales of perforations in which no traces of tumefaction or excitation persist. True To You When I Punch You is the only reminder of his shadow existence. Stuck up in his nose, this small ring meticulously carved by BB5000 is almost invisible. But still, the only presence of this object in his body and the contact of its metal with his nasal mucosa gives him the corporal solidity that his PHD on the classification and clustering of high-dimensional data failed to convey. This ring feels like an obelisk to him, a monument that celebrates violent eroticism. It enforces a vertical excitement that marks the sum of all his renouncements. Instead of cherishing the illusion of accomplishment, he surrendered to his metallic inner passions. On his way back to the Hilton hotel located on the Northern part of Davos, his body progressively starts to renounce all his rights for the benefit of his partners. Adorned with razor wires, the sky slowly dissolves into the focal points of their desires. World GDP, the uncertainties regarding the Four Asian Tigers' economic expansion, and the 21th century agricultural challenges evaporates only to solidify again as one of the many tools of his sexual paraphernalia.

Bruises and injuries punctuate his body and make his skin look like another layer of his Gore Tex outfit. After the first round, his blood slowly starts to surface. His white middle-age wealthy body surrender to his assailant. This is no ordinary war. For him, the calm becomes an unbearable violence. Every single cell of his body is called to the battle. They team into intricate formations and plan ambitious tactics. His aseptic habits are overwhelmed by the game. His body is excavated by the erectile desires of his visitors. Inches by inches he becomes the surface of their excitation.

- Pierre-Alexandre Mateos & Charles Teyssou

Adam Cruces, born 1985 in Houston, Texas, lives and works in Zürich.

Louisa Gagliardi, born 1989 in Sion, lives and works in Zürich. As individual artists their practices have quite different approaches and concerns. On one hand, Gagliardi's paintings delve into realms of personal space and the subconscious, with images that are created digitally, printed on PVC, then physically manipulated over the prints to complete the final product. On the other hand, Cruces' work explores certain recreational and obligational aspects of daily life, while incorporating a variety of materials including the traditional paint, wood, and ceramic to the less conventional 3D prints, popcorn, fireworks, and fountains. Their mutual collaboration collapses their independent approaches, allowing the duo to be more playful and risky than usual, and can generate a range of results with themes often touching on intimacy and physicality. As partners inside and outside of the professional context, we decided to designate our collaborative output as a joint practice.

Recent exhibitions include:
Tastes like headaches, with Adam Cruces, kim?, Riga (2017)
Walking Errands, The Cabin, Los Angeles, CA (2016)
adamcruces.com
louisagagliardi.com

BB5000, is an artist group formed in 2015, based in Milan. It consists of Giada Carnevale, Arcangelo Costanzo, Francesco Saverio Costanzo, Filippo De Marchi, Giovanni Riggio.

Recent exhibitions include:
Broken Air, Hotel Art Pavilion, Brooklyn, New York (2017)
I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream For Ice Cream, Fondazione Baruchello, Rome (2017)
Salamandrina, Galerie Tobias Naehring, Leipzig (2017)
Body Holes, curated by New Scenario, Berlin Biennale 9th/ Fear of content, Berlin (2016)
ON-SCREEN AND OFF, Bid Project Space, Milan (2016)
bb5000.org

Sebastian Burger, born 1980 in Magdeburg, lives and works in Leipzig. In 2005 he graduated in Painting at the Academy of Visual Arts, Leipzig, and received his Master diploma 2012 with prof. Neo Rauch. In his recent body of work Burger explores ideas of physicality, dissolution and renewal. Objects arranged in still lifes, fragmentary landscapes and cartoonish, martial characters permeate and complement each other throughout the compositions. The paintings' subjects evoke individually charged associations depending on the viewer or context, yet still evading complete decryption. He combines illusionism with flatness, transparency with opacity and color with contour: the paradigms of painting. In accordance to the idea that a painting is a structure consisting of inner as well as outer references.

Recent exhibitions include:
T.B.A., Grand Tour Studio/ Raw Raw Edizioni, Milan (2017)
DAMA, Galerie Tobias Naehring, Turin (2017)
Birth of Serpents, Galerie Tobias Naehring, Leipzig (2016)
Through a Glass, Clearly, G2 Kunsthalle, Leipzig (2016)
sebastianburger.de

September 23rd – October 15th 2017
Thursday 11–19, Friday – Sunday 11–16 (free of charge entry)
Opening Saturday September 23rd 18–21
Platform Stockholm, Lövholmsgränd 12, 11743 Stockholm